Fair vs. Greedy Game Monetization - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Fair vs. Greedy Game Monetization

Episode Release Date: November 14, 2024
Hosts: Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Tim Gettys, Blessing Adeoye Jr., and Andy Cortez.

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1. Introduction to Monetization Debate

In this episode, the Kinda Funny Gamescast dives deep into the contentious topic of game monetization, specifically examining the fine line between fair practices and greed-driven strategies. Greg Miller opens the discussion by recalling an initial attempt to address this issue, which pivoted into a lighthearted podcast episode without Snowbike Mike's participation. Recognizing the multifaceted nature of monetization, the hosts aim to explore various perspectives and determine where the boundaries lie.

Quote:
Greg Miller ([10:03]): "When you're talking about monetization and swiping the card, you need Snowbike Mike Michael."

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2. Personal Approaches to Spending in Games

Angie Hicks shares her stance as a non-spender, emphasizing a preference for enjoying base games without feeling nickel-and-dimed by microtransactions. She states, “I just want the base thing. Give me that. Let me spend a specific amount of money and then just have what I have” ([11:18]). Angie expresses frustration with games that pressure players into continuous spending to stay competitive, highlighting a desire for transparency and value in purchases.

Blooming Adeoye Jr. counters by acknowledging his own spending habits, especially in mobile games and trading card games like Pokémon TCG Pocket. He reflects on the internal conflict between recognizing predatory tactics and still partaking in them for personal satisfaction ([38:08]).

Tim Gettys discusses the broader implications of spending on game monetization, questioning the sustainability and moral responsibility of developers. He muses about the endless cycle of game releases and the necessity of monetization to fund ongoing development ([36:12]).

Snowbike Mike admits to being part of the problem, openly acknowledging his susceptibility to cosmetic purchases and loot boxes. He recounts personal experiences with accidental overspending on games like Overwatch and Valorant, illustrating the addictive nature of certain monetization strategies ([77:34], [79:06]).

Quote:
Snowbike Mike ([46:40]): "Have I paid for stuff to have an advantage in the past? Of course."

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3. Case Studies of Monetization Models

The host group examines specific examples to illustrate their points:

• NBA 2K’s MyCareer Mode:
  Tim Gettys critiques the model where players must spend significant amounts to enhance their in-game characters. He highlights the frustration of new players starting at a low skill level unless they invest extra money. This creates a pay-to-win environment that diminishes the fun for those unwilling or unable to spend ([14:47]).

• FIFA Ultimate Team:
  Angie Hicks draws parallels to Pokémon card packs, explaining how randomized loot boxes can lead to excessive spending. She points out the blend of collecting and battling, which can be both engaging and exploitative ([19:38], [21:02]).

• Pokemon TCG Pocket:
  Blessing Adeoye Jr. discusses the dual nature of Pokémon TCG Pocket, where monetization serves both competitive and collectible purposes. He argues that while the game includes pay-to-win elements, it also fosters a strong collecting culture, which dilutes the purely predatory aspects ([30:33]).

• WWE 2K Factions:
  Greg Miller contrasts WWE 2K's monetization with other sports games, suggesting that while there are microtransactions, they are less invasive. He appreciates the balance between earning in-game rewards and purchasing them, although he remains cautious about future developments ([27:34], [29:34]).

Quote:
Tim Gettys ([21:11]): "With NBA 2K, it's a freewheeling conversation. You're forced to spend to compete, and that's an outrageous expectation."

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4. The Psychological Impact of Monetization

The discussion delves into how monetization strategies can impact players psychologically:

• Predatory Tactics and Gambling Addiction:
  Angie Hicks and Snowbike Mike highlight how randomized loot boxes resemble gambling, potentially exacerbating addiction issues. They express concern over the manipulation of players' spending habits through game design ([32:17], [42:47]).

• Perception of Value and Consumer Responsibility:
  Blessing Adeoye Jr. emphasizes the importance of developers providing clear value in their offerings. He argues that consumers should reflect on their purchases and consider whether the spending aligns with their enjoyment and budget ([38:35], [51:12]).

• Regulatory Oversight:
  Andy Cortez advocates for greater regulation to protect consumers from exploitative monetization practices. He believes that relying solely on personal responsibility is insufficient, pointing out the need for government intervention to set boundaries ([40:34]).

Quote:
Blessing Adeoye Jr. ([32:17]): "There needs to be a moral responsibility of people putting out a product... they have to ensure there's appropriate value added to what they're asking for."

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5. Balancing Monetization and Player Experience

The hosts explore potential solutions and best practices for balancing monetization with a positive player experience:

• Transparency and Fair Pricing:
  Angie Hicks suggests that using real currency instead of obscure in-game currencies could reduce the predatory nature of microtransactions. She believes that clear pricing models would encourage fairer spending habits ([38:08], [41:27]).

• Value-Driven Monetization:
  Blessing Adeoye Jr. and Greg Miller advocate for monetization strategies that offer tangible value without compromising gameplay. They stress the importance of providing worthwhile content that justifies the expenditure, rather than forcing players into spending more to remain competitive ([41:27], [46:53]).

• Community Reflection:
  The hosts encourage both developers and players to continuously assess the impact of monetization strategies. They call for a collective effort to ensure that spending is voluntary and enhances the gaming experience rather than detracting from it ([51:27], [73:52]).

Quote:
Angie Hicks ([40:33]): "It's fucked up that we had to kind of take the morality conversation out of it... the whole system that we're in."

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6. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

In wrapping up, the hosts acknowledge the complexity of the monetization debate. They recognize that while monetization is essential for sustaining game development, it often treads a fine line between fairness and exploitation. The consensus leans towards advocating for more responsible practices, greater transparency, and increased regulatory oversight to protect consumers.

Final Quote:
Blessing Adeoye Jr. ([74:45]): "Every side needs that reflection point. Do I feel okay about this purchase? Is it worth it?"

---

Key Takeaways

• Monetization Strategies: Game developers employ a variety of monetization models, from microtransactions and loot boxes to subscription services and early access passes. Each model has its own set of benefits and potential pitfalls.

• Player Perspectives: Players exhibit diverse attitudes toward spending in games, ranging from avid spenders seeking cosmetic enhancements to frugal players avoiding additional costs.

• Psychological Impact: The design of monetization strategies can influence player behavior, sometimes leading to addictive spending patterns reminiscent of gambling.

• Responsibility and Regulation: There is a growing call for developers to adopt ethical monetization practices and for regulatory bodies to implement measures that safeguard consumers.

By exploring these facets, the Kinda Funny Gamescast offers a comprehensive analysis of game monetization, urging both developers and players to strive for a more balanced and fair gaming ecosystem.

Transcript

[Angie Hicks]

Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of angie.

[Greg Miller]

When you use Angie for your home projects, you know all your jobs will be done well, from roof repair to emergency plumbing and more done well.

[Tim Gettys]

So the next time you have a.

[Angie Hicks]

Home project, leave it to the pros.

[Greg Miller]

Get [e-mail]. what's up, everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, November 14, 2024. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, alongside Forbes 30 under 30, aka the second best baby blues, aka the married one, at Tim Gettys.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

That's him. Host.

[Greg Miller]

How you doing?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Good.

[Greg Miller]

You ready for the show?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Oh, yeah. It's not going to go off the rails. We're going up your sleeve.

[Greg Miller]

We're going to do the thing.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm just going to sit here enjoying my iced coffee next to him in.

[Greg Miller]

A different bomber jacket. It's four of 30 under 30, aka New York Game Awards. Nominated aka leftover poppy blessing, Eddie Oye.

[Angie Hicks]

Jr. Good day, Greg.

[Greg Miller]

Good day. How are you?

[Angie Hicks]

I'm doing good. I heard what you said about me on khd.

[Greg Miller]

What did I say?

[Tim Gettys]

This is a safe space.

[Greg Miller]

You can say whatever you want out here. Nobody gets in trouble.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't know.

[Angie Hicks]

That's how. That was a podcast.

[Greg Miller]

That's how podcasting is. No one's ever gotten in trouble for a podcast.

[Angie Hicks]

Nobody's ever got in trouble for a podcast.

[Greg Miller]

Listen, I don't really want to super kick you, all right? It's all for show. It's just how it was one day.

[Angie Hicks]

I do want to be super kicked, but like, not in like, not in a wrestling context. You know, not actual. Yeah, no, I mean, but like, like.

[Greg Miller]

A real super kick. He dodged pretty easily. You dare be stomping for.

[Snowbike Mike]

The hell's that? You gotta make sure they slap the legs.

[Greg Miller]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Angie Hicks]

Well, dude, I would pay for Shawn Michaels, the super kick man. Are you kidding me?

[Tim Gettys]

That'd be incredible.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I don't need to go.

[Greg Miller]

That's how I felt when Jeff Jared hit me with the guitar. You know what I mean? Like, what an honor. Cut my face, but it was worth it.

[Angie Hicks]

Oh, for sure.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, yeah. Over there. Of course, the master of hype, Snowbike Mike.

[Tim Gettys]

Hi, Greg. Thanks for having me on today.

[Greg Miller]

I'm happy to have you on. I love this sweatshirt. Don't let anyone tell you you wasted.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Your money on it.

[Tim Gettys]

Thank you, Greg. $250. Getting my money's. You know, Greg, it's a really good day today. Thanks for asking. You know, tomorrow I get to sit on a plane next to My best friend, Andy Cortez. Two bros, aisle and middle. You know what I mean?

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, no.

[Greg Miller]

He picked that on purpose. You know, he had the option for window. He went middle.

[Snowbike Mike]

Do you remember the one time that we were going to Austin and we all purposely put our seats in the back of the plane and Kevin Cuella was at the front?

[Greg Miller]

One of the most heartbroken moments I've.

[Snowbike Mike]

Ever seen from it was. It was a conversation. It was. It was Kevin afterwards be like, I was really fucked up. I wasn't funny. Like, I didn't like that. But it was so funny, man. It was so funny when he found.

[Greg Miller]

Out that it was booked that way on purpose. You saw the light in his eyes die. That was one of those moments where.

[Snowbike Mike]

That was a great moment.

[Greg Miller]

And of course, he's the Hispanic heartthrob Texas street Latino heat clicking heads and ripping him to shreds. The globetrotting head shot in three point shooting root and tootin nitro rifle from Twitch tv. Andy Cortez.

[Snowbike Mike]

Hello, Greg. Hello. Excited for Vegas. My first time.

[Greg Miller]

What I'm really so.

[Tim Gettys]

I don't.

[Greg Miller]

What is the public messaging on Vegas?

[Tim Gettys]

I'm not.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I'm not sure. But I know that what I am allowed to say is that me, Snowbike, Mike, Andy Cortez and Roger Picorni are headed to Las Vegas, Nevada tomorrow and we will be playing Sonic the Hedgehog at topgolf. That's. That's what I know. That's all that I know. But we're gonna have a good time. I know that we will be very social about it. That is to say, follow us on Instagram and Twitter and.

[Greg Miller]

Blue sky.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah, Blue sky.

[Angie Hicks]

Imagine.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

We'll post some stuff there. Why not?

[Greg Miller]

You do one of those things where on Instagram can you leave like the little word bubble? You know the little word bubble when you go to your messages and you got a little word, but that's only.

[Angie Hicks]

For you that follow.

[Greg Miller]

I just want to know where you guys are.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I was gonna say, Mike, you just put.

[Greg Miller]

Greg, we're going to the buffet. And I'll know that for me.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Does Blue sky have live streaming capabilities? Oh, I doubt they have, but if they do, we'll.

[Tim Gettys]

We're gonna go to game over.

[Greg Miller]

Greggy. Blue sky right now. We'll see if it does.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Stay tuned to us. And we're just gonna be having fun playing some top golf. I've never played top golf and he's never been to Vegas. Mike.

[Tim Gettys]

I've been all. I've been all over the place. I'm excited. I'm gonna get us into the Omni. Okay. We're gonna go into the big night club. We're going to the big nightclub.

[Angie Hicks]

I'm so jealous. We're gonna dance.

[Greg Miller]

There's no live stream. There's no live stream here for this one, so I can't do that.

[Snowbike Mike]

I. I, like, I'm just so. I'm so afraid for the city of Las Vegas. Like, I don't. They don't know what's about to be unleashed.

[Greg Miller]

Because what you guys are doing basically 24 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mike, I look to you because you'll be party leader.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Greg Miller]

You're the alpha dog.

[Tim Gettys]

I am team captain. Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Now, of course, you also know Andy Cortez. If he's out of town, he's down the clown. What is the itinerary here? Are you letting them sleep or is it.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, yeah. Greg, if you. Thank you for letting me divulge what we're going to do.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Of course.

[Tim Gettys]

We were landing.

[Greg Miller]

Listen up. Take notes, because you need to know.

[Tim Gettys]

Take some notes. Just so you know, we're going to land. I'm going to allow everybody to go up to their hotel room. Oh, thank you for allowing freshen up for a moment. And then we're going to go to nice little pre dinner and we're going to get a good sit down. Hey, everybody, let's laugh a little bit. Of course we're going to go to top Kenny. Too much apps there.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Are you buffeting? Are you steaking? What are you doing?

[Tim Gettys]

We're going to steak. We're going to steak out. We got to eat big. We got to eat big. Be big.

[Greg Miller]

Do you have reservations?

[Tim Gettys]

I already talked to my main man, Gary Witta. He runs Vegas. We're set.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, wow, that's good to know.

[Angie Hicks]

He does.

[Tim Gettys]

He does.

[Greg Miller]

He runs Vegas. You're going to bankrupt the company with this one.

[Tim Gettys]

Then we're will go to topgolf. We're going to have a blast. It's going to be a really awesome collaboration. And of course, we get to be there for the fun. Cheese fries, bacon bits.

[Snowbike Mike]

Cheese fries, bacon bits.

[Tim Gettys]

So everyone knows when this ends will probably be around prime time of the Jake Paul, Mike Tyson fight. So now, whatever casino floor.

[Snowbike Mike]

No, that's happening in Dallas. It's happening in Dallas.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, I know, but we're going to be in Vegas, Andy, and you have to Vegas.

[Tim Gettys]

So whatever sports stuff happening.

[Snowbike Mike]

Vegas is crazy.

[Greg Miller]

I once went to a UFC thing with Chris Ostertag, and when we were coming down the escalator with our bags. When? As soon as we are. I'm sorry. To get our bags. As soon as we hit the floor of baggage claim. A man in an affliction shirt walked past us and he just looked at Chris Austria, said, fuck your mother.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

And I was like, I just said, fuck your mom.

[Greg Miller]

He's like, was he talking to me?

[Tim Gettys]

So then we will probably hit the tables, hoping for a little blackjack, a little roulette while watching the fight at the same time. The fight will conclude. That's when I'll look at everybody. I say, hope he brought your dancing shoes because we're going to the Omnia to dance. Who's there? Maybe Diploma, maybe Zed. Who knows? It's going to be a good time. Then when that ends, Greg, what time?

[Greg Miller]

Ballpark, what time we at right now, you think?

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, probably. I mean, when the end of the nightclub? Probably 1:00am, 2:00am right there. And then I'll give you the option. You can tag out like a baby and go to sleep, or we're going to walk the entire strip and see what shenanigans we can get into at every single casino.

[Snowbike Mike]

We're going to get lime scooters. I'm going to lose an article of clothing in the streets of Vegas.

[Tim Gettys]

So it's going to be a great time.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I will say it's very scary that this is a Friday night event. We are going to be in Vegas. I think the event is around 8pm or so. Which to Mike's point, it's like, all right, when we're done with this thing, I don't know when it's going to be. 10, 11, something like that. Like, our flight's not till like 4pm the next day.

[Greg Miller]

I was going to say there's nothing the next day related to topgolf.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

No, Saturday is come home early and.

[Greg Miller]

Go to indie wrestling with me. They're not doing. They're doing Pacifica now at the gym.

[Snowbike Mike]

I love Top Golf. I'm excited, man.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

This is going to be great. We're going to have some fun.

[Greg Miller]

I hope there's a lot of video of this. I hope we have a lot. Are we bringing the vlog cam? Are we? Ok, good, good.

[Tim Gettys]

We're going to vlog.

[Greg Miller]

I'm going to need a whole breakdown of this when we get back next week, Mike.

[Tim Gettys]

All right, you got a deal, Greg. And if you want to invite me to that indie wrestling, shoot me the address because I'm near there.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Let me know.

[Greg Miller]

Okay, sounds good. I'm an address Ladies, gentlemen and enbies. This of course is the Kind of Funny Games cast. Each and every weekday we run you through the biggest topics in video game. Whether they be reviews, previews or just topics off the old dome. If you like that, why not pick up the Kind of Funny membership? $10 supports our small 11 person business and gets you good karma. And gets you the ability to watch all of our shows. That's 20 a week ad free. The ability of course to watch our afternoon podcast live as we record them like today's Kind of Funny podcast. And you'd get a daily dose of me in a series we call Greg Way. However, I understand not everybody has $10 to throw our way. No big deal. You can get the show for Free with ads, YouTube.com kindofunnygames, Twitch TV, kind of funny games and of course podcast services around the globe. If you are watching live, you have a special job, go to YouTube.com Kinda funny games super chat to be part of the show and let us know what we're getting right and wrong. Because I have a feeling you're gonna have opinions about our opinions today. Some housekeeping for you. You've already got the announcement that we're all Xboxes on Kinda Funny Games daily. The stream immediately following this will be Call of Duty, Warzone with Mike, Nick and Andy. Like I said, if you're a member you can get a Greg Way about social media in 2024 from me. And of course the Kinda Funny podcast is live recording today. Why is today different for Warzone? Why are you excited about War Zone today?

[Snowbike Mike]

It's brand new map.

[Tim Gettys]

Brand new map. It's a big day. It's an important day. Season one of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 is now here which brings new maps, multiplayer, but most importantly brings new maps to the war zone. So we will be jumping into Area 99 and he's excited, Nick is excited. I'm jazzed up. It's going to be a great day.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean it just feels like you're getting a brand new video. It's just like that the morning of Christmas. You know what I mean? I don't know. Just unwrapping this little gift and then getting mad. Probably like 30 minutes later.

[Greg Miller]

Of course. Yeah, rage. 30 minutes max.

[Snowbike Mike]

Honestly.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you to our Patreon producers Delaney Twining and Carl Jacobs. Today we're brought to you by Sonic at top Golf, Marvel Snap and Shady Rays. We'll tell you about that later. For now let's begin with what is and forever will be topic of the Show. We made it, everybody. I don't know how many weeks it's been since we tried to originally do this topic.

[Angie Hicks]

Four, but we're here.

[Greg Miller]

Thank you very. Really? A month.

[Snowbike Mike]

Look at that.

[Greg Miller]

Crushed it.

[Angie Hicks]

No way. Really?

[Snowbike Mike]

Mother go by quick these days.

[Greg Miller]

No problem. We are here to talk about when it's okay for capitalism to ruin games, AKA fair versus greedy game monetization. You might remember we tried to do this weeks ago, but it turned into a kind of funny podcast and we all had a great time. Plus, Mike wasn't here. And when you're talking about monetization and swiping the card, you need Snowbike Mike Michael.

[Tim Gettys]

Transactions, baby.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm so glad that people just think of Mike for the one who swipes the card. I am so involved, but I'm like, yeah, Mike, you're the sucker. The date was this was supposed to.

[Andy Cortez]

Be a games cast dash. The kind of funny podcast was October 18th, so almost a month.

[Greg Miller]

God damn. Look at that. What a month.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'll have him quick.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I love that.

[Greg Miller]

So this topic springs from the audio feed Notice kind of funny Games daily where the one, the only blessing, Eddie Oea Jr. Was talking to Roger. I believe it doesn't matter who it was actually, but we were talking about Life is Strange and the fact that the two episodes had released and that this was a weird structure. Does it ruin the game? Etc, etc, so on and so forth.

[Snowbike Mike]

It was definitely my idea.

[Greg Miller]

But yeah, blessing, my favorite child blessing.

[Angie Hicks]

Okay, I heard what you said about me. I'm trying to earn it back.

[Greg Miller]

Try to earn it back. All right.

[Tim Gettys]

Anyways, brought up.

[Greg Miller]

Well, when is it okay for this? What are the passes we give to game monetization? Where is this episode one and two being released two weeks before the rest of the thing? It's okay on some people's scales, but not on everybody's scales. And so then it became, well, this would be a fun topic to run through and see what we like, what we don't like, where the line is for us, what we like. Am I nailing it? Bless.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah, I think that's pretty much the heart of it too. I like, I'm. I'm glad again that we have this specific panel because I was talking to Mike right before the show and I was like, mike, you're on this, right? And he was like, yeah. I was like, good, because I don't spend. And I think that's where. That's where I come into this. Where. Where I won't say I won't spend because Pokemon TCG Pocket exists, but for the most part, I don't spend. Right. Like, when it comes to microtransactions, a lot of the time, honestly, when it comes to dlc, like, I'm somebody who. I want the base thing. Give me that. Let me spend a specific amount of money and then just have what I have. I don't want to come back and feel like you're nickeling and diming me. And so, like, I feel like we have, like, opposite sides of the spectrums here and, like, everything between represented. So I'm excited to talk about it because I feel like usually when I listen to podcasts or when I read Reddit or when I read, like, the timeline and I see people talking about, oh, man, this game is fucking. You know, they're. What's the word? Predatory. Oh, they're going after me. They're going after my wallet or whatever. I'm on the other side of my computer. Like, oh, man, I just don't spend the money. And this is, like, not in. This isn't me just talking as somebody who is blessed and I get codes now that I work here and all this stuff. Right before I worked at Kind of funny. Also didn't, like, buy microtransactions. Like, it was such a. Like a, you know, bold wine for me. And so I'm excited for this conversation. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

I think the thing that bums me out the most about it, about just, like, I'd be way more okay with all of what these companies do if it was like, hey, this will keep people employed more. And that's what. That's where I feel bad about spending money because I'm like, I'm not ensuring that you're going to lengthen contracts or anything like that. I know where the money's going. And so it's one thing to be like, well, I want to. It's one thing to say, I want to support this smaller indie team or let me get my character up to an 82 overall in NBA 2K and spend $190 or whatever, you know, But.

[Tim Gettys]

I got to compete.

[Angie Hicks]

You got to compete.

[Tim Gettys]

Got to compete in the neighborhood.

[Snowbike Mike]

How are you going to compete on the. On the hard top?

[Tim Gettys]

You know, I can't be looking like a FedEx driver. No. UPS. Dr. Driver in the all brown.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

You know what I mean? Yeah. We can't be doing.

[Snowbike Mike]

Nobody wants to look lame.

[Angie Hicks]

So to compete in the neighborhood, you gotta spend money. Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

So there's a big thing in the NBA 2K community. Of course, every Single year the game comes out and if you want to be able to compete day one, you have to put up 70 to $100, which you've already spent $70 in the game. But to get enough attribute points to even get you up to like 84, 86, it's not even 90 or 99, you still gotta grind. But just to get up to that level where you can move fast enough, be agile enough, be able to shoot on the hardwood, just to compete with others, you have to put that money down. And so the biggest problem with that game, if I'm going to go on.

[Greg Miller]

The ramp right off the bat, this is the conversation. It's freewheeling. Originally there was thoughts of what if we got this four and we ordered that. But then when we put them in a list it was just like, well, there's like 19. So it's like, whatever.

[Tim Gettys]

So the issue with NBA 2K is you pay $70 for the game, you've gotten the game. Now, of course, one of the biggest modes in the game is my player, which then takes you into the park, into the rec, which is their big shared universe of we're all our own players playing in basketball together, which is the coolest thing.

[Greg Miller]

And so I've heard this, but I can't envision it. Are you doing one on one games?

[Tim Gettys]

You're playing one on one. 3v3, 2v2, 5v5 now as well. That's what they call it in the rec. So it's your opportunity to essentially live out your basketball fantasy with all of your friends. Right. This is taking it from the Play nows, which is just you playing as Steph Curry and LeBron. This is taking you away from the ultimate teams, which we'll talk about later on. This is I get to be my character and we play together.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's talk about like some of the most cherished multiplayer memories I've ever had. Some of the coolest moments with 2k12, maybe 2k13, having not only my player, but my team. So I, we all created ourselves, we're all just super into this, like, I don't know, just the way that this sort of system works.

[Greg Miller]

And then we all, this is what.

[Snowbike Mike]

Me and two of my homies and then we do the my team where you pick the little logo of your team, you pick the jersey colors, you make your arena look a certain way, and then you just play other squads online. And it was, it's some of the most memorable gaming stuff that I've had ever in my life. And it was so much fun, but I also wasn't spending money back then. It was. I just got to grind my character until I could be. And I think that's also before they fully understood the way to really kind of hook you, you know, And I.

[Tim Gettys]

Think that's the catch is like, I would, I would go out to say that in NBA 2K, the biggest mode is my player, where then you would play in the neighborhood. Right. And so the catch is, is every year you will buy the game for $70 to create a my player. It is free. You will come out of that creation and you will be a 64 overall right then and there. You have the moment. Do I go grind with single player games out in the neighborhood to earn points, to then get attribute points for vc, which is the virtual currency to buy those attribute points, or do I just jump ahead of the line and pay an extra $100 to get up to 84?

[Greg Miller]

Absolutely not.

[Tim Gettys]

90% of the people will do that. Right. Outrageous. If you step onto that two v two courts, me and my homies have already done that. You at 64, it is going to take you hours to get even close to being able to compete with us, which now we're at a gigantic level boost ahead of you.

[Angie Hicks]

So do you not like, is that not a line for you where you're like, oh, I'm just not going to do this then?

[Tim Gettys]

No, because it's not fun.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Now that game mode becomes unplayable because it is not fun being that bad.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right.

[Tim Gettys]

Me and my homies have done it before where we've drawn the line, said we'll not do it, and being a 64 overall sucks.

[Angie Hicks]

Well, I guess my thing is more so even draw the line of, oh, I'm just not going to touch this mode.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, that's what for me is close mode. And I, and I, and I get. I understand what you're saying. It's just for me, so foreign to think of my obsession mainly back in the day, you could toss college football in there this year, but back in like college when it was like, I'm doing NCAA football every July and then Madden every August, and I'm taking my characters over and doing the dynasty and running. And it was always about me playing as Mizzou and me playing as the Bears and building these dynasties and doing it and then playing PO or playing my other friends in college or, you know, when online became a thing, playing people online and realizing even though I was the best person anybody had seen in Missouri, I was not great on the global stage. But it was like I never. These are different things. But my interpretation of NBA has always been through my keyhole view of my football games. So I'm always like, oh, well, if I was, if I was into NBA, I would buy it and do a dynasty as the Bulls. I would run and do this. I would create a character, sure, and put them on the team, but it wouldn't be this. My. So every time it's come up as being greedy and horrible, I'm always like, well, why just don't play it? But you're saying that's what you buy the game for.

[Tim Gettys]

It's funny because you and I, Greg, are very similar in that of back in the day with college football and Madden and stuff. You would just play the GM mode or your seasons, right? It has evolved past that where we all want to play together. And when you think of these sports games, the next level is similar to FIFA with you. And I have seen is playing together, making your own squad with your friends. So now NBA 2K has allowed you to play 5 on 5 basketball with 5 other human beings versus 5 other human beings. And it's really awesome. Just like FIFA now is 11 on 11. It is so cool of going from a single player game where I'm just playing you one on one or I'm controlling the whole team to wow, we're all in this together. Andy's the point guard, you're the center, I'm the shooting guard. This is really cool. Right? And so that is the game mode that's driving this game, right? There's a large audience that probably doesn't play this game mode. But I would, I would go to bat and say this is the largest game mode in 2K, because everybody wants to talk about that fantasy.

[Angie Hicks]

You're probably going to say the same thing about FIFA Ultimate Team as well, right? Of like, this is the most popular mode in this game, but it's also the most predatory as far as what it asks of your wallet or what it asks of even like the way you think about playing that mode. Because it is, oh, I want to have the best, the best team. The whole point of this mode is to, you know, get the best stats and put together the best squad. So collect real quick.

[Greg Miller]

So many of our people aren't sports people. I know it. But what explains FIFA Ultimate Team?

[Angie Hicks]

I feel like, Mike, you can probably.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, Ultimate Team is a really cool thing that a lot of sports games have now hopped on. But FIFA, FIFA and Madden were kind of the first forerunners into that. And it was the blending of card collecting that you grew up with with sports card memorabilia and now into the game. So instead of just playing as the Chicago Bears and having that 11 person unit or, you know, 22, whatever, now you get to collect cards out of card packs, open them up and have the big wow factor of oh my God, I just got the rookie card of Justin Herbert. That's so cool. Now you collect cards and then put them into your ultimate team, meaning all 11 players can be from different teams, different eras. They all have their special attributes, depending on what kind of car and card and rarity style they are. And then you build it out. And so the cool one on FIFA is they have cards from around the globe because FIFA is a gigantic global sport now. And they even play into how those players will align with each other. Players from certain countries or certain leagues will play better together. And if you want to, you can really double dip into it of like, I have to have every card from this certain section of the globe because they play better together or you like me. And it's like I'm going to collect every of my favorite card, right? I'm going to put Ronaldo and Messi and Mbappe over here. And it doesn't matter if they don't, if they clash, I'm playing with my favorites. And that's a really cool blending of what we've grown up with with card collecting and video games.

[Greg Miller]

So now hard stop. Thank you for explaining. For people who don't understand now bring in the predatory nature of it and how this is happening, how it's going for your pocketbook.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, let's talk about the monetization of those. So I'll start off with 2K and then I'll go into Ultimate Team. So on 2K, we're talking about creating that character, right? And so with that character, you create one character and you have to pay to get those attributes up. You will also pay for clothing in the world, right? These are all.

[Snowbike Mike]

Or you could grind for about 30 hours to even get up a minuscule amount, you know.

[Tim Gettys]

And so the problem with NBA 2K is and what we're going to talk about with the microtransactions and all these sports games is it never carries with you. It never goes from year to year. So every year you have to restart.

[Greg Miller]

Or almost like these things should be a live service. The hit Blessing show about WWE 2K.

[Tim Gettys]

Every meta change, it affects your player, right? So if Tim somehow creates the demigod starting five that everybody Wanted and they affect him. By the next update, changing those stats, that means Tim's character that he put hundreds of dollars into wasted. And guess what? You can't just revert those. You have to make a new character and spend more money on that. So you never get the, oh, I get the refund and get to do this again. You just have to keep buying and buying. I think in some 2Ks, I've probably created 3 to 4 characters with hundreds of dollars Mike. And so that's how. And with 2K, it's very difficult because you have to do the wingspan, you have to do the height, you have to do the weights and all of these effects, different attribute points and how they play. And it's like you have to go to the pros and deep into Reddit to find that. And then the next update, all that is thrown out the window. So, like, that's a very difficult thing to find the perfect character build and have that or you become. You become Mike. And I create myself. And it's like 510 jabroni, who's a slashing point guard, isn't the meta and I suck and all my money is wasted. So it's like, what, what was the point of that? Just to have fun being me. And so that's 2k then on ultimate Team. The cards. The issue with the cards is, is it is a randomized loot box. We see it with Pokemon cards now. You're tearing open packs and you at the will of the random number generator, you are hoping that you will get this. It's not guaranteed, of course. They've done a good job. Just like Pokemon and all these things that you've done cards before of, like, here's the statistics, here's the numbers. You know what you're getting into before you buy.

[Greg Miller]

If you buy the delay pack, you get a better chance, better odds at getting this.

[Tim Gettys]

As much as you want to, you know, moan about it, you know what you're jumping into here. And so you play the game of here's a hundred dollars, give me 100 packs. And I just hope that out of that hundred, I get eleven great cards in real. In reality, you don't.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right?

[Tim Gettys]

You're going to get a lot of duplicates, you'll get a lot of copper cards, a lot of silver cards, hoping to get up to gold, and then, you know, purple amethyst. It depends on what game you're playing, but you hope. And now, of course, every single season or every single year in a game, if you think about it it's a 12, 9 month cycle on these sports games. Right. You're going to have season one of these cards, then season two, we have more cards. Those cards that you had aren't good anymore because these cards are good. So now I got to get back on the cycle. And we do this every year. And then at the end of the year when you might have spent hundreds upon hundreds of dollars, we say, guess what? FIFA 26 is coming out by that. And guess what? All of this, it's gone. And then you have the issue with, oh well, Blessing had a great deck in FIFA 23, seven years from now, they're going to turn off those servers and everything that Blessing had, even if he wants to go back there all the time and hope to play somebody or play the computer, boom, that's gone, that's off. And so we're seeing that now as well in the video game world of like, we're starting to turn things off and all that money spent is like really, really gone.

[Snowbike Mike]

Is that why the ftc recently, everybody woke up that one day, a couple like a month ago or so, and had every app update and every website was like new t, terms of conditions, agreements or whatever. And like Steam had this as well, where you are essentially agreeing that you don't own this game. Yeah, you own the license of the game.

[Greg Miller]

Take it away from you.

[Snowbike Mike]

And I feel like that's happening a lot with video games where people are kind of bringing up the point that you're not carrying all this over. I'm looking at just different kind of Reddit posts Talking about NBA 2K24 is my career. And this is sort of like an average cost of what you could kind of put into it. So $70 for the base game, 60 bucks for Xbox or psn online or whatever in order to even play online. About a hundred dollars on average for the my career build. And you can't reassign your skill points, which is fucking crazy. And $240 if you're paying for a full year of the season pass. There are two different season passes for NBA 2K, right? I guess it's their version of like a battle pass or whatever. The most expensive one is 20 bucks a month. It's a Hall of Fame pass. You get everything in the pro pass, which is access to 40 earnable premium rewards. In addition to 80 interval premium rewards, four additional automatic season pass rewards, 45k VC that are virtual currency. 45,000 virtual currencies and you have 10 level skips, an additional 15,000 virtual currencies. So not only can you pay a lot upfront to just kind of get your player up there, but then they have that sort of monthly payment which is like their subscription model.

[Greg Miller]

So now I have a question. Infinite Corpse in the chat said, I fail to see why anyone would want to do this. Before we jump to that, I want to jump from my perspective, right? Because I'm a WWE guy and so 2k of course has my faction, which is their. Their version of the. It's 2K but you know what I mean. WWE's version of the NBA thing, right. And ultimate team thing. And I enjoy my faction a lot. I've put money into my faction. Yes. But never anything outrageous like in terms of what we're talking about, literally like, oh, there's an ECW pack or whatever throughout the years I've bought or whatever. And of course you earn a lot of. I, I think that for WWE if you haven't played it and as I introduce it to this concept, I think it's not nearly as bad as what you guys are talking about. It exists and you could do it that way if you want and go buy the gajillion cards and tear them open and blah blah. But if you're getting the dlc, you're getting the packs for free of them. They're usually really. I just opened up, you know, Mr. Perfect and Lex Luger and all these guys last night they were like 90s. So it's like they're getting great people in there and yada yada yada. But.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

But the.

[Greg Miller]

My faction in WWE for me seems like the less predatory version of this where it is the fact of okay, cool, I'm going through and sure they give me a bunch of cards to start and maybe I. If I'm a big Roman Reigns fan, I don't have Roman Reigns or I don't have the Roman Reigns that I. The most crazy version of them I do. But what they've introduced this year with faction wars and then the rewards at the end, you can go get the boss with the in game. Like I feel like that's a non broken version of it. I don't know if anybody's had enough experience with it to agree with me because I don't have enough ver. I don't have enough experience with your version.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Angie Hicks]

I think for me playing a little bit of my factions, I think the thing I would bring into it comparing it to what FIFA does with their stuff or what NBA does with their stuff is using the FIFA as An example, I think FIFA is just on a way bigger scale and they've had way more time to dial that stuff in in a way that is, oh, this is now an industry. Like, it's very fascinating going to, you know, visiting my nephews, my oldest nephew, he's 10 years old, and he's obsessed with soccer, and he's obsessed with FIFA content creators or EA Sports FC content creators. And it's fascinating hearing how he talks about soccer players. Like, hearing how he talks about Messi or Mbappe or Ronaldinho or. I knew I started to get dialed into what was going on when he started talking about soccer players that aren't even active anymore. Right. He is talking about, like, older soccer players in a way where I'm like.

[Greg Miller]

How do you know these guys?

[Angie Hicks]

I'm like, how do you know these guys? And he's talking about, like, oh, yeah, like, I watch this guy who plays FIFA and he pulls the pack and like, he's. He's playing with Ronaldinho or he's playing with Maradona or like, you know, these classic players. And I think with FIFA, you have such a wide amount of things that you can do as far as, like, you know, how deep the soccer culture runs throughout the world, how deep the soccer history runs throughout the world. Right. Obviously, WWE has this stuff, but, you know, I'm not a fan yet.

[Greg Miller]

I'm not. I'm not trying to die on that hill. And I also. A big part of this, I think, is if wwe, my faction, was more successful, I definitely think it would be more like.

[Angie Hicks]

I think that. I think right now, WWE faction is still in, like, the building blocks mode of. All right, how do we get there?

[Greg Miller]

And what they introduced this year is not maybe the canary in the coal mine, maybe not, or whatever. But it is that idea that now when you go in and you play and you get your cards, you can unlock Persona cards. And when you unlock a Persona card, that is an alt attire that then works in the real game. So it is the idea that if you want, you know, Seth Rollins, whatever, look, or, you know, I'm just pulling. It doesn't matter. Anybody see they have a million centimer punks, right? Like, you pull that and you could have it and then have the altar tire in the game, which I don't struggle with, but hear me out of, like, I think that's cool. I like playing my faction, so I like the idea of getting a random reward. But I'm also not so obsessive that I need a CM Punk. I can say like, oh, that's a really cool gear. In no world would I be like, oh man, I really want that CM Punk gear. So I'm going to spend 49.99 to get 10 packs to tear open to hope I get it. This isn't me. I wish I could just buy it if I wanted it. Sure.

[Angie Hicks]

I think the thing to bring into this conversation that I think all of us have in common currently is Pokemon TCG Pocket.

[Greg Miller]

We're getting Tim off the bench.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah. Because like, you know, at the top of this I mentioned that I'm not somebody who spends. I'm not somebody who wants to get the microtransactions. I'm a one and done person. And that has been true for a FIFA even. I'm. I'm just on. When I'm playing, playing EA Sports FC Online, I'm just playing like the ranked. Like we're just using whatever teams, right? I'm picking a team and I'm playing. I'm not messing around with ultimate team. None of that stuff. Because. Because the idea of opening packs and the randomization, that stuff, it hasn't appealed to me. Playing Pokemon TCG Pocket has infiltrated my mind and heart in a way where I'm like, shoot, all right, they got me. I'm spending $10. I am, you know, playing versus Tim to compete for the hundred dollars, that thing that Greg pulled last last week. Right. And I'm waiting for the whole weekend for the DM from Greg for the hundred dollar code. That way I can tear open these packs because there are a few cards that I really want. I really want the Alakazam full art. I really want any of like those like yellow, like you know, Pikachu, Charizard, like Mewtwo, like the cool yellow cards that they have in there. I need one of those. I am on a different level as far as like how engaged I am and how like I am waiting for the timers to go down. And I think, I think most of us probably have that in common currently where we are locked in like Tim's collected everything, right? Tim got the mew.

[Snowbike Mike]

I have spent $60.

[Angie Hicks]

Yes. And like the question I want to bring into this is. And this is with FIFA, this is with NBA and this is with Pokemon and this is with like any of these randomization, like, you know, these types of games that we're talking about. What is the line and is there a line or do we all just. Are we all just resolved with. It's predatory, but we're fine with it, right? Like is there a place where it goes from greedy to this is okay? Or are we just all okay with us gambling?

[Greg Miller]

And that is a great question that we'll tackle after I tell you about the fact that this is Kinda Funny Gamescast Each and every weekday we're here. Hell, we're here all day long with live talk shows. You could peruse on YouTube.com kindofunnygames or Twitch TV kinda funny games. However, if you really wanted to go that extra mile and support our 11 person small business that entertains you all day, pick up the Kinda funny membership on patreon.com kindafunny or YouTube.com kinda funny games to get all of our shows ad free. Get the ability to watch this afternoon's Kinda Funny podcast podcast live as you record it. You get a daily podcast from me called Greg Way. You're not using your benefits right now, so here's a word from our sponsor.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

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[Greg Miller]

So Tim, Blessings Question is what is the line?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It's a great question. I I feel like there there needs to be a line but unfortunately I think the line is different for every single person. I think there's a lot of cont involved in defining where that line is. Having said that, I do think that it is it is the responsibility of developers to fight to make sure that there is a line that they have when they're creating to make sure that there is value to what they are asking for. To me that is always how I feel like these things need to be thought of from the starting place. How much money we can get needs to be questioned too. And I know that's often not how things are designed mind right. So I feel like as somebody that runs a Company that to some extent has similar things to this. When you think about our offering for the kind of funny membership and on Patreon and YouTube and stuff like, I always start with what is the value of what we're doing and what we actually want to do. And then we start to think of, okay, what's the right way to figure this out? But I always want to make sure that we are providing value for what we're asking, asking for in terms of price and in terms of not taking advantage of people. There's such a balance to that. It's such a delicate dance. But I feel like when it comes to the mobile game specifically is where I feel like I actually, I could say for sure I have spent the most money when it comes to microtransactions. I'm not playing sports games, so that's never affected me. I'm not playing first person shooters in a modern era that I'm buying all the cosmetics for guns and all that stuff.

[Snowbike Mike]

You were really shocked with the Fortnite.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Prices blown the away. And I do think that something that I think is absolutely unacceptable, but it's just something we need to deal with is when they use different currencies to represent money. Because that inherently, no matter how responsible you are as a person, throws off your understanding of. Oh yeah, of what you're doing.

[Angie Hicks]

I'm not spending $30, I'm paying 30 mumbo jumps.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I that sucks. And I feel like that is everywhere in all of the games that I have spent money in, whether it's Pickle Blast, back in the day, Pokemon, Go, Pokemon Trading card Game, Marvel, Snap.

[Angie Hicks]

I But here's the thing, right? If all those unique currencies instead were straight up $5, like $5, $30, like the actual currency that you're spending, I think sales would go down.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Absolutely. And I think that that's. That's not cool. Like, I feel like you should know what you're doing and it should be worth the dollar amount. And if it is, then you've done this right. You've solved the problem. And I truly believe that's how things should be. It's like they should be offering something that if Mike's looking at it and it's like it's worth $70 to me to do this thing and he believes it and like, then cool. The value is there.

[Snowbike Mike]

We are introducing funny money this year though, so keep that up for everybody. All of our patrons, our 10th anniversary.

[Greg Miller]

Get your kind of funny bucks.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I love that. But Barrett.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

The one point that I would kind of disagree with you there or I get where you're coming from in like it's on the develop to try to find the limit themselves. Like I think morality wise, yes, realistically wise, I think it's more so on regulations and government and actually looking at these type of things and trying to protect consumers from these things that people were bringing up in chat earlier of like that's why this is why EA is like always battling with the EU and all this stuff. Because over there there are much more tighter regulations around things like gambling. Granted, we live in America where capitalism is going to run rampant much worse over the next four years. So I doubt that will ever happen. But in terms of what should be happening to kind of help consumers, that is I think where it needs to start. Because devs and companies and corporations are going to always have people at the top who are always going to try to get the most out of of their consumers and they're going to try to get away with as much as they possibly can. And so regulation is where that needs to put a cap on that.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah, I do think like where the goal of a company oftentimes is to, you know, generate as much revenue as possible, right. Make as much money as possible. The goal when it comes to then the monetization is like, all right, how do we squeeze as much money as possible out of this?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right?

[Angie Hicks]

And like it's, it sucks and it's fucked up, right, that we had to kind of take the morality conversation out of it. Like, like we can try to. We can, I think for us as a company, we can try to be moral, right? For we can look to other companies to try and be moral in those, in those scenarios. But I think when we try to make that happen, usually the outcome is going to be oh no, like we got to get as much money. Like that is the whole point of this whole system that we're in. I think another interesting talking point, I think the comparison kind of funny, I think, you know, is interesting as far as the way we monetize and the way other companies monetize, right. I think with the examples we've given so far as far as, you know, Pokemon or NBA or FIFA and stuff is at least for our Patreon or for kind of funny membership there is a defined, you know what you're getting, you know, you're getting ad free. We know that. I'm not trying to advertise, I guess I advertise, right? This is joke. You're getting ad free. You know, you're gonna get the Greg way. You're gonna get specific things that are defined.

[Tim Gettys]

We were.

[Greg Miller]

Instead we're like, you give us the membership and then every week you get 10 episodes at random that we're head free.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, it's like, good luck.

[Angie Hicks]

Like, you might get, you know, KFGD free, or you might get like a unique regular or something. Right? Like, the randomization aspect in video games then turns it into, I think, gambling adjacent.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Right?

[Angie Hicks]

Casino adjacent in a way that I'm not. Like, in a way that I think can be very predatory and very problematic in a lot of ways, but also in a way that, like, I'm not totally against in all ways.

[Greg Miller]

Right.

[Angie Hicks]

Like, I think there's a large gray area when it comes to it.

[Greg Miller]

Right?

[Angie Hicks]

Because then, like for Pokemon tcg, for example, that works basically the way that opening Pokemon card packs work, right? Or we're opening packs in general for Yu Gi. Oh, magic, whatever, trading card, baseball cards, right? And you know what you're getting into, and it's a tough thing of people. That's what. That's kind of what you're paying for. That's kind of what you want. Like, the whole point of a trading card game is to have the bragging rights of, oh, I pulled this thing and I got the golden card. And I. There's a conversation there that I think is so tough because inherently, I think you can make the argument that that does something to people's brains. You can make the argument that especially for somebody who is susceptible to gambling addiction, for example, right? Like, that is a very shout out to the Pikachu X card that Andy got yesterday.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm very jealous of during our meeting. It was so sick. I'm so excited. But I think didn't get it.

[Greg Miller]

Nick was mid making a point so rare and it is kiss.

[Angie Hicks]

I think you could make the argument that, that for kids, giving them the option of, oh, spend the $5 and then you get the random thing, and then maybe you'll get the cool random thing and show it to your friends. Oh, you didn't get it. Maybe spend five more dollars. Right? Like, that is kind of a gateway into gambling and like casinos and all this, right? And it's.

[Greg Miller]

But it was that way of card packs back in the day, right? When I needed one more Terminator 2 card to have my set complete. Like, yeah, it would be tear the pack at the baseball card store, give me another pack. You know what I mean? Like, and I'm not justifying it, but it's. It's such an interesting conversation to go back to Tim saying the line is different for everybody. Where it really is that thing again, like. And I'm not. There's no right or wrong answers, I think, to this. But there's is so much that blows back and I do wonder how much of it is on the consumer where it is. Like everything Mike said about NBA, never in a fucking million years would I do that. Even like just let's say it was reversed and it was WWE were doing make your own character and go brawl in the backyard federations and build yourself up to be a WrestleMania superstar. And it was like, well, you got to do this or you're not going to be competitive. I was like, I'm never going to play that mode. Right.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

A line for me where I would never go do that. And even with me, like for the games, I love. I love battle passes. Like when there's a Fortnite battle pass with a bunch of Marvel shit, let's fucking go. Diablo every season. Yeah, Ian, let's go. I want to do that. I want to run with that. When Avengers was doing it for the individual characters, they did it differently, but similarly enough for this conversation. Yes, I'm in on those things. But all that said Diablo season pass every time. Diablo the store. Fucking $20 for a suit of armor. Get the fuck out of here, Blizzard. No, I'm not paying. I paid once, but not most of the time. No. Right. But it's like that. That gets into that usual conversation of, man, I've played a hundred X or whatever X hours of this game. I've had such a good time and again for us a lot of times I got the game for free. So yeah, I'll buy this suit that I think looks cool for a rogue, right? Or I think I was on the Diablo podcast when I did it. Like they guilt. Not guilted, hype me up. They juiced me up to do it. So I did it right. I don't regret it. But it's like those are one offs for me. And so my hope has always been when I'm talking about Diablo outfits or when I was talking about Avenger outfits, where you know how much I loved Avengers and Those outfits were 20 bucks, I think as well. And it was like, it has to be a very special Captain America suit for me to go get that one rather than all the ones I would have bought if they were cheaper. Right. The hope for me always is that, well, the free market will speak. People won't buy those. And then those Prices will come down, right? And then the fact that Diablo has been out for over a year now and those prices haven't come down, say, nope, there are enough whales or normal people out there who are buying it. Which then gets back to the 2K thing where I assume this mode is very popular, the people who play it, but then is turn off to everybody else who would never go to it. And then it's like this weird scale of now to jump to WWE and me worry about these Alta tires. What does that look like next year year when clearly people have been running and doing this. Is it going to be that there's a gajillion of them at launch? Because WWE is another one where I like personally as a player. The DLC batches they put out throughout the year. There's the argument to be made of all those guys should be free. You should be able to pay. They should be included with the game at the base. I don't always fully buy that because it's a sports game. It's an annual thing. You get nine months to work on it. Centimer Punk comes back in November. Your game shipping in March. He's not going to be ready for prime time. Right. So. So I like the drops to get them later and come back to it. But if it is going to get into a weird monetization thing or this, that the other in terms of the outfits, then it starts to get it and what will be successful and when. How much do you get? Nickel and dime for it?

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

For me.

[Snowbike Mike]

For me, the pay to win stuff is kind of where I would say is likely my line. Have I paid for stuff to have an advantage in the past? Of course. But the.

[Greg Miller]

Do you feel like we've won that. That battle though? I feel like it's very rare that I hear like, oh, this is actually. It's usually. Oh, it is a cosmetic. It's only going to do cosmetics.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean, well, the NBA one is like the main one that I think of where I. You can't put that genie back in the bottle. They're already at that point where they have set the precedent for this and that's what's expected of them. And this is such an important mode to so many people. And people now know that if I want to have fun with this game mode on day one, I am putting in a certain amount of money already. Right.

[Tim Gettys]

They'll always say, oh, it's just an option. You could play for free. Like they'll always say that, oh, you can. That's just an option to fast track it if you want 100.

[Snowbike Mike]

Yeah. For me, the cosmetic stuff, like I, I love buying cosmetic stuff. I, I'm part of the problem. I love this character to look cooler, this gun to look cooler. I buy stuff on the ride store all the damn time. Like I am such a sucker for that. And I'd say like the cosmetics of his, mainly where I'm drawn to. I want my dude to look awesome. I want my gun to have a cool little effect if I get the final kill of a round.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

Makes me sparkle and I get all happy or whatever and, and a lot of it comes down to something I always bring up. I got no girlfriend. Bless.

[Angie Hicks]

Yep.

[Snowbike Mike]

I got no kids.

[Tim Gettys]

No kids.

[Snowbike Mike]

I got a car payment. I got disposable income. Like that's where my, my disposal income is. Like I'll put, I'll buy a little skin here or there or like in Tim's case, in Tim's case, whenever there's a free to play game that, that, hey, I've been playing this for seven hours. Yeah, I'll buy a little $10 thing, whatever. I may never ever play from here on out, but here's 10 bucks. I played your game for seven hours. I feel like I owe you that as a, as a consumer or whatever. Not saying that everybody should feel that way, but it was so fascinating working at. When I was in my time in game development and working at the studio Portalarium where we were working with Richard Garriott who's like the father of the Ultima series and like just one of the OG game developers and one of his former colleagues, Chris Roberts, who work was working on Star Citizen and is like the lead of Star Citizen. And both of our teams each had Kickstarters with crazy goals, right? And like we have that here. We have the producer tier, we have all sorts of levels where people could.

[Greg Miller]

Support more and largely.com kind of fun.

[Snowbike Mike]

Largely. It's a lot of people that just say, hey, I just love the stuff you do. I got money to spend. Here's money. Keep on doing what you're doing. Right. But early on we would have visits in from really, really, really big fans that were paying that had already put down $10,000 because they wanted to tour the studio and get to hang out and see what we're working on and be more involved in the process or whatever. And you know, at this story from January 5, 2024 from Ryan Dinsdale talking about Star Citizen developer Cloud imperium and their $48,000 spaceship which is a spaceship that costs 48 real thousand dollars that you can also buy insurance for in case it ever gets destroyed. And that's where the cosmetic stuff then turns into. You know, you're hoping this, this is a forever game. I don't know how many units they've sold on that, but Star Sitting is the type of game that you see somebody with a cool spaceship, like, oh, shit, how. How much you spent on that spaceship? I spent 120 bucks. Oh, cool. I could start off with that. That. And then the 120 things can then turn into. But this has more room for your whatever activities on your ship. And you can play basketball on this ship and it's $20,000. And then that's where the sort of prices keep on going. Because they saw the opportunities there. They saw what the market was able to do and how people have continued to spend money on that franchise. And that's the stuff that really, really gets murky for me where I'm like, like, okay, first off, this game is like still in early development and there's a lot of people. We know what Star Citizen's been through, but holy. They are still bringing in a lot of money from really, really hardcore fans to.

[Angie Hicks]

If I can give my, my line, at least please. The line that I, you know, I don't have a hard rule for it because this is still like an ongoing thought process that I'm always wrestling with when it comes to game design and like the healthiness of like how you go about monetizing a thing. Right. Because I think for me there's the reality of video games. Need to find ways to monetize video games, need to make sure that like, developers and studios can stay in, stay in business. There's a reality to being able to fund your next game and fund the people that work on your title and all these things. Right.

[Greg Miller]

I think for me, people are buying. Just double down on this because I know it's always a contentious point, right? People are buying fewer games and playing the games they have longer. So it is an industry that while we can. There's plenty of scummy decisions here. The idea I don't think is scummy because it is. Well, how do we keep this going?

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah. So for me, I think the line is, is the game design good? Like, is the, is the way that a game is designed around its monetization? Monetization fun and frictionless in a way that makes you not feel like you, like you are being nickeled and dimed? I think the Example I'll give is when we talk about pay to win. I think think pay to win often comes up when the pay to win is more egregious. I feel like people don't really think about pay to win when the pay to win is like, you know, doesn't feel like a. Oh, man, that's the only way I can win this thing. That's the only way. So, like, the example I'll give is I remember playing Last of us in 2013, right? The multiplayer mode factions, after a while, they had added a gun that you had to pay for. It was like a shotgun. And it ruined my experience with the game, right. I think it probably. They must have released it like maybe a year in or something. And I remember running into somebody with that shotgun. They killed me in like a one or two shots. And I was like, damn, what was that? And I looked up that gun. I was like, oh, I gotta pay $10 or whatever it is for that gun. And I kept playing. And after a while I was just like, I can't play this anymore. Because now I feel like the obstacle I need to get over is paying the $10 to get that gun. That way I can, I can stay in the game. I think that is an example of, you know, a bad game design decision of a point of friction, a point of awkwardness, a point of like, like, oh, this is sticking out in like a sore thumb to me. I think you fast forward today and bringing. Bringing us back into the Pokemon TCG Pocket conversation. I think you maybe make the argument that Pokemon TCG Pocket is pay to win in a way, right? Like there's a meta around specific cards, right? It is Mewtwo Ex and Gardevoir. It is maybe Charizard Ex. You know, there are like a small group of cards that if you want a winning deck, like these are the ones, these are the ones that people are going with. And if you want to have those cards, right, you either go with the randomization or you fork up the money. I would make the argument, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, right. I would say that's like an element of pay to win right there, right? Or that's an example of like a pay to win sort of structure.

[Snowbike Mike]

But yeah, the more car, the more packs you're buying, the more chances you have to get them. But I think it would be more obvious and something that you could point to more if it wasn't randomized. I think if you could just look at a list of cards and say, I want that yeah, for $20 or. But you kind of can for 30 poke bucks.

[Angie Hicks]

That's the thing is like you get the pack points for like everything, every pack you open. So theoretically, if you spend money, you can get the pack points and then you go through the list and you can buy the Moltres Ex or whatever it is it is you want. But that doesn't feel as awkward and as janky as like that gun that was demolishing me.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I think the difference is. And because like, obviously it to an extent is pay to win because of all the points that you're making there. Of like, if you don't have these cards, you are a disadvantage. So you need to. If you paid more money, you could get those cards quicker. Like that exists. But I think the focus in Pokemon trading card game in particular is. Isn't just on the battling. It's also on the collecting. And I feel like that the. The battles and winning PvP isn't necessarily the main point of the game. It is a point of the game. So I feel like because of that it paying to win. There's the other side of the collecting, right? That there is also. Yes, like you're paying to. To get the collection quicker. So that works there too. But I just feel like, because whereas in Last of Us, like having a better gun defeats the entire purpose of the game. Like you. You were like, you cannot play the game at the level that you should be able to because of that.

[Snowbike Mike]

How many times, Mike, have we seen a gun in the COD battle pass, that's. That kind of becomes the meta. It doesn't feel like it's too rare, right? Where they're like, you know, maybe level up to get that gun quicker or double XP and all sorts of stuff. I'm just so glad that at the height of me playing a game like Apex or War Zone that I was never enticed by their cosmetics or whatever because I just generally don't like the look of those games. I've never been enticed about. But Overwatch, like, I would buy loot boxes back in the day because I wanted that one cool skin for my character because I. And a lot of it comes down to personal preference of. I just.

[Angie Hicks]

I love those watches boxes, man.

[Snowbike Mike]

I never liked the way Apex's stuff looked. So I wasn't enticed to look cooler because I just always thought it was kind of ugly anyway. And I feel the same with War Zone, but sometimes you see that, that weed flag on your gun, Mike, and you got to pop up.

[Tim Gettys]

I Mean, am I about to buy some Air Jordans in Fortnite when they start releasing shoes into Fortnite? Yes, Tim. Like, that's crazy behavior that we've gotten to the point. I find it fascinating as someone who is really regulated because they won't regulate.

[Andy Cortez]

Themselves and they design everything to make Mike and others not regulate themselves by the shoes.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm interested in this business side of things. Like, I would love to be in the room. I'm fascinated by that. This is a area in video games I would love to learn more about, because there's someone in a room that was like, yo, let's put shoes on these characters. They already have shoes. They already have a full character model. But what more could we stretch out of this? Because we're now clearly seeing we are maxing out on cosmetics of weapon skins, vehicle skins, weapon charms, new character models. We are. Are backpacks. They are. They have gone to the tippy top of what we could expect on this to then go, what more could we do? And someone said, let's build shoes. And I'm. I'm fascinated by that. It's wild that we're in a room going, yes, let's do that.

[Snowbike Mike]

It really is the next evolution of the nft having a digital good that could theoretically just exist forever. Right? But in this case feels more, I don't know, realistic in a way to where you are watching. Your character in Fortnite seems to be like a forever type game that feels like a bit more secure of a purchase as opposed to buying something in 2K.

[Tim Gettys]

Yes.

[Snowbike Mike]

21. And that character is gone. You know, and that's the thing too.

[Greg Miller]

Where I think, you know, you talk about Fortnite purchases, right? And every time I engage with the young, the youth, right? And it's, oh, you play video games, let's play Fortnite and I'll whip out a Switch or my phone or whatever, right?

[Snowbike Mike]

They get so stoked to see, like, how much vc.

[Greg Miller]

All they want to do is go into my skins. What skins do you have? Yeah, God, you have so many or you don't have that many.

[Snowbike Mike]

And it's the thing of, like, classic John Wake 1.

[Greg Miller]

They break out theirs and they're showing you off what they. And it is a crazy thing of like, wow, like, this is the Pokemon card. This is the collectible. This is the baseball card, right? Of what this is.

[Snowbike Mike]

You go into your. Your rich friend's house and be like, oh, my God, look at all these goods you have.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

You have.

[Snowbike Mike]

You have that. Look at these you have that one skin that's incredible. You know, like, yeah, there's. There's that rarity and there is that excitement to, to kind of make people want to spend more and more. And I, It's. It's a poison. And I'm part of the problem. I fully admit it. I think Fortnite, I bought that arcane. That arcane gun skin. Don't ask me how much.

[Greg Miller]

But I mean, it's like such a baby bathwater argument that I like, you're part of the problem. It's like, well, are you like, because are you a part of the problem for buying your Chibi statues or me buying the latest Ghostbuster toy? Like, it's like, these are real goods. Sure. But if it's. It's the endorphin rush of getting that collectible and doing that thing where it's like in real life or I'm sorry, in the video game world, buying it and getting it is that way too.

[Snowbike Mike]

Right?

[Greg Miller]

So it is. I'm still such. I'm a cheapskate, period. Let alone in video games where it has to be against that edge of like, like, oh, I'm gonna buy this Fortnite skin because I love Captain America or I love Ghostbusters when they did it. But like, even then I was like, I'm buying this Ghostbuster pack, not the one with all four or whatever it was. I don't need everybody. I just need.

[Snowbike Mike]

I. I do think I am part of the problem. I do think it is all a big problem in the grand scheme of things because it is teaching lessons to all these executives and people in corporate worlds that say, you need that game to be like this. Hey, what if. Hey, what if PlayStation you made a games as a service game. What if Dragon Age was also games as a service game? And it teaches the lessons that can essentially make a game worse in some aspects. And. But my problem with it is that I feel more connected to it because I'm in the games industry. And we hear so many stories about layoffs.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

And we hear all these awful stories about saw on LinkedIn the other day that a woman at Riot was on her maternity leave and got laid off. And yet, like, all of these microtransactions could not keep these people employed.

[Greg Miller]

Of course.

[Snowbike Mike]

And it'd be one thing if I saw the one to one effect of I'm buying a game from, I'm buying a microtransaction in a game made by 20 people or I'm giving money to a gigantic Corporation that does not give a fuck about any sort of like, like, let's try to keep this games industry rolling and rocking with employees and constantly being, you know, employed.

[Greg Miller]

The one thing to push, I'd push back on and it's from the, what 18 years of me doing this is like, I feel like I've been there when it was egregious and games were launching horrible and Prince of persia, what is 2008 launches without an ending because the ending was DLC. You need it. Like it has snapped back to where I do feel more than ever. It is the battle pass. Everything's cosmetic, this thing. Everything's cosmetic or like. And granted that's because of lawsuits and everything else and consumers. Like there's a million things going on. There's, you know, we've lost the ground on 2 NBA 2K. I don't think there's any way to get the genie back on that one. Right. But it's like, I do think for the overall thing, microtransactions are still a bad word, but I think it always comes back to that Batman Arkham Knight 1 I did, right? Where if you remember when we were out on our own, it's kind of funny. One of the first things that got announced that we were big on was Batman, Arkham Knight happens and they announced a season pass and it's gonna have Batgirl dlc. And then it was like it's also gonna have some other shit. Basically. They didn't gig, they didn't go into the specifics. And so many people were up in arms that they didn't go into specifics. And then my argument that I took away from it was, well, I'm a Batman fan and a rock steady fan and not. I'm excited and maybe this is a loot box of I don't know what I'm about to get, but Bat Girl dlc, I'm in for the. Whatever else they were just talking in vague allegations about. I was like, I'm in for. And then it was this like, so is everybody else who's just mad about it not actually into it? Are they. Were they ever going to play Batman? Were they ever going to play this dlc? Were they like. And that's fine to have an opinion about it obviously, but I think so much of this stuff has to speak to your core audience. And I think then where we are now, so many people do it correctly. But then there are these egregious examples where you look at it, oh my.

[Snowbike Mike]

God, this I. I don't love the I mean this whole conversation spurred from like we were talking about the life has changed things where I I don't think I've ever loved the whole buy the collector's edition, get early access and you get in three days early or whatever. Like I think that's not awesome but it's way worse when the point we were making was you're you can get.

[Greg Miller]

This five part series. You can get episode one, you can.

[Snowbike Mike]

Get episode one and two. Yeah. Two weeks before everybody else. In a game that's so spoiler heavy.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

In a game that really really matters for what your experience experiencing story wise and that's like a quick way I think to alienate that audience and I guess I'm more okay with it even though I don't love it. Of hey get into Call of Duty early.

[Greg Miller]

Sure.

[Snowbike Mike]

First like I still don't love it but I feel like we again we can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. It's that model is here to stay I feel because they are seeing numbers every time you see like a Steam post of wow. This multiplayer game has this many numbers of people on Steam right now. And it's only early access. These aren't even people that are playing on Game Pass or whatever. You know this Call of Duty on the early access thing having 40,000 or whatever on Steam right now or hundreds.

[Greg Miller]

It'S not even fully out yet.

[Snowbike Mike]

It's insane. Yeah. So like I feel like that is here to stay.

[Greg Miller]

Spam591super chat and said I gotta say I really hate the recent trend I'm seeing from Xbox of paid early access to single player games. Feels scummy. Creating spoiler centric fomo.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

That's the mix of Game Pass and of course the early access editions right there. Right. That's what we're seeing here here and we've seen it with a number of Xbox first party titles of of course you are subscribing to Game Pass. So you excited to get your first party titles in that subscription service. But that is coming out the day of that is not the Hey I I see early access is like that is a way to try to push the pre orders because we've hit this wall on pre orders of like what's the best way to really sell you on pre orders? Clearly cosmetic skins aren't enough so we have to give you the day the game game three days early.

[Angie Hicks]

Right.

[Tim Gettys]

And so the thing is maybe it.

[Snowbike Mike]

Is enough but they just want more. That's usually what it is.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, well, I don't know about that. I think the number of like skins aren't going to push you to pay that extra 20 bucks, right? Like if, let's just say we'll use Prince of Persia, right? If he was like hey, here's three cool skins for 20 bucks. You'd be like, I don't know if I want to pre order that. Like it's fine. And if they were like yo, you can play the game seven days early, plus those three skins, I think that pushes it a little bit more. And so we're seeing that with Xbox of well you're going to get the game in your subscription service, but day of or if you pay the $30 or whatever it may be for just the gold edition, you'll be able to play those games the three days ahead of time with what the other people are doing when they're paying for their gold edition.

[Angie Hicks]

I think I'm more mad at the people that are paying for it than like the companies that do it though for like their three day early access. Because I do, I look at that and I'm like, like oh, like who would do you're paying 30 extra bucks or whatever to play this game a few days early? Like who's doing that? The fact that it keeps happening makes me think that a lot of people.

[Greg Miller]

Are doing it, doing it.

[Angie Hicks]

And I'm like, if that's the case, I'm, I'm of the mind of like do y'all like, I don't really, I don't. For me it does. It's not a thing that I guess affects how I look at like the early access. For me that's a very easy thing to skip. Like an easy thing.

[Greg Miller]

And that's the whole argument here again with what's your line? Right where it is so easy for me to be like, well do this NBA thing, but I'll do this thing. But that, but then it's this concern that if enough people did the bad thing, the thing you don't like, that's your line, right? Then it fucks it up for everybody.

[Snowbike Mike]

There's, there's a hundred percent. Like I would if we didn't get the Call of Duty, whatever early access thing for free, I would likely be watching somebody on Stream Plan and being like, damn, gotta do it. I might have to dive in like I want to. I have that FOMO right now and that sucks. Like I, I, if we didn't get that sort of early access for free, that's one of those benefits Of. Of being in those jobs that we have. But otherwise, I don't know if I would hop in unless I saw maybe, like, Mike streaming it or something. Like, oh, I want to get in there, you know?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I really. I'm. I'm more interested in like, the pointing fingers because it. It gets me down seeing our audience get, like, really mad at me bringing up anything or, like, blessing talking about, like, oh, I'm mad at those other people. It's like, it's very odd that we now look at each other and go, I'm mad at you for buying this, or I'm mad at you for doing that.

[Angie Hicks]

Right?

[Tim Gettys]

And it's like, hey, we're not pocket watching. We're not. We're not talking about, like, what you do on your own time. You do your thing. I've never been mad at, like, what other people do with their own time and private time. It's very odd that we've now gone to like, yo, you just bought that $20 skin in war Zone. What the fuck?

[Angie Hicks]

I guess for the early access thing specifically, right? For me, it's not like a, how dare you buy this? Like, you know, you're ruin. Ruining this. It's more so, like, listen, I don't get it. I'm. I am very much like you. Do you, though?

[Tim Gettys]

Like, well, yeah, it's like the Pokemon thing, right? Like, you're into Pokemon right now, so you're like, I'm willing to buy it. If Tim was like, I'm so into Metal Gear Solid, they're giving me seven days early access and they want to buy it. It's like, oh, yeah, that's.

[Greg Miller]

I don't know. I mean, and I can't talk to every example, but I know on this one, people were like, oh, my God, Mike, when you're talking about NBA, that's not at least that. And then because I say the same thing, I'm not mad at you. I'm more like mad at them, I feel, taking advantage of you, like, I wish you were. I. I just want you to be taken care of. I want you to find the fun.

[Tim Gettys]

Take it like that. I just find it odd that, like, we quickly come as, like, everyone on earth becomes more like, pointing fingers as opposed to, like, it's clearly the company's creating this to sell it to people that want this, right? And you can get mad at them for maybe being greedy or. Or coming up with those tactics, but to be mad at, like, your fellow coworker or just a friend or just some random jabroni for being a whale. It's like, how could you be mad at that? The guy's just spending his own money, living his own life. Don't worry about that.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah, I think the, When I often think about the price that I'll pay for like a game or like if I want extra stuff out of the.

[Greg Miller]

Game or like, you wanted to pay a lot, you were.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

What was Tears of the Kingdom?

[Greg Miller]

Tears of the Kingdom, Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh yeah.

[Angie Hicks]

When I was like, I'll pay a thousand dollars. Listen, if they put out Milliger solid six tomorrow and they're like, you gotta pay a thousand dollars, we're paying that. But I think I often take like the video game price of admission thing and I. And maybe there's a bad way to do it. But like, I think about like theme parks, for example, right? I think about Six Flags and I'm pay, I'll pay what, $80 to go to Six Flags for, for maybe what, seven hours of enjoyment. And I'm like, man, I could get way more enjoyment, way more hours of enjoyment out of a video game for that same amount of money, right? And like I kind of use that as like a value determiner for me. Where, you know, I. The one time we went to Six Flags back in like July 2021 or whatever it was, right? Like we got.

[Greg Miller]

So where's the capes? You got them. Thank you so much.

[Angie Hicks]

We got there, we were like, man, these lines are too long. What if we paid the extra money? And I guess for me, when I think of like the three day early thing, when I think of, honestly, like any scenario where people are wanting to spend a little extra money to get a little bit more enjoyment out of the thing. They like, I think of like the time we get the lightning pass, right? Or people who will get like the fucking Mickey Mouse shirt at Six Flags or whatever and like that's their version of a cosmetic right there, right? Like I.

[Tim Gettys]

We're seeing it in every industry. People are playing to get on planes early. We're seeing it everywhere. Yeah.

[Snowbike Mike]

The only reason I feel personally bad about it, like, I'm not saying anybody else should feel I'm the one that's like, I think I am part of this problem because I'm so close to the industry and I. Because I know people that are affected that, that I know that no matter how If I spend $9,000 on Valorant, that doesn't mean that you may keep.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

Your job or not.

[Snowbike Mike]

Like, it's just, still, it's just going to go to the Richest people and whatever, you know, corporate and.

[Angie Hicks]

That's Right. And when it comes to. Yeah. What the different things that people will spend money on, I think the way the place I come down on it is that, yo, people are just into different things. If Mike really loves NBA 2K and he wants to spend more money on NBA 2K, like, all power to you, right? If I'm really enjoying Pokemon TCG and I want to spend 10 or $100 on Pokemon TCG, like. Like, if that's what I'm spending my money on, I think the only places where I'm like, ooh. Are when it comes to whales and when it comes to maybe, like, stuff that's getting into more of a gambly side of things that could have negative effects just on people in general. Right. Like, I think that's where I start to get a bit more judgy might not be the word, but a bit more. I guess, like, I. We should talk about this and figure out if this is the right way to go. But, like, if somebody wants to spend 30 bucks on a skin. Yeah. Do you, dude, like, look like Luke Skywalker and whatever. Fucking Valerie or whatever the fuck.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I feel like from every perspective, like, there is a line. I think that just because there's a line doesn't mean that we're not willing to cross it and that they're not trying to pull us across it. And I just feel like that's life in so many different ways of, like, we know something's wrong, but we still partake in it. And, like, it's not like we. Sometimes we have a choice, sometimes we don't. But it's just that this is the way that things are. But I do feel like there is. Things are at their best when there is a moral responsibility of people putting out a product, no matter what the product is, whether it's a video game or a merchandise or just music, literally anything that you're putting out and asking people to pay for. I do feel like the. To me, there is a line of those people should have a responsibility to care about this stuff and make sure that there's appropriate value added to the product they're putting out. I don't think that the majority of people function that way. That bothers me. Doesn't stop me from buying things. But I think that that's, to me, the biggest problem. And I think that you can reflect that on individuals making purchases. Like, do you have the means to be able to buy this? What does it mean when you support these things? And support. Like, the amount of money I put into Pokemon Go is offensive, honestly, for what I've gotten out of it. From an actual digital perspective of my collection and stuff. The gameplay, me walking around having fun playing Pokemon Go, I would say is probably worth the money that I've spent. So, like, there is something there. Is it predatory as it is? It's very problematic. I am not okay with the way they do things. I'm still doing it, though, even though I'm not okay with it. I think that's that weird balance that makes it hard where I know where my line is. I am also willing to cross it every so often, which is, I think, scary. But I also have a internal reflection point whenever I am purchasing these things for the games where I do question, am I getting what I want out of this? Or is what they're offering me for this amount? Yeah, is this okay or not?

[Angie Hicks]

I feel like the majority of us are overpaying for something out there. I buy so much doordash, dude. I shouldn't. But like, like, I spend an offensive amount of money on doordash and it's just the thing of, like, yeah, man, that's something I should fix. But I think that goes for. For every person.

[Greg Miller]

But it makes me happy.

[Angie Hicks]

It makes me happy. Yeah. And it gives me satisfaction because I can get that. That sandwich. Get that buck horn sandwich.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I feel like taking it one step further, though. It's like the, like, is it making me happy? Like, that can't be the only part. Like. And we can for you, if that's where your line is. But personally speaking, I just feel like there should be on the other side, on each side, there needs to be that reflection point of, do I feel okay about. About selling a Starship for $48,000? Do I actually feel okay that somebody's going to do that for what I am providing them? And it might not be just the ship. The ship might be a representation of, hey, you're really just going above and beyond because you love this game and you want this game to. To go bigger. We get that there's that understanding there. In the same way. Again, going back to kind of funny, like, when we think about the platinum items that we put out and it's 50amonth for that kind of funny membership, we know that that product is not worth $50. We understand that the $10 a month thing we offer, I would stand by to the day I die. It is worth the $10 because of the amount of work we put in and what needs to happen in order for that to exist. And what we expect, the audience is able to actually contribute in a way that we don't feel like we're just ripping money out of their pockets. Right. And I feel like having those options and making that clear, it requires reflection on both sides from us, which I know we do very often of looking at things, looking at the economy, looking at where everything's at. And I feel like every other company should do that, and they don't, and I think that's up. But I also think that consumers need to look at what they're doing and look at what's being offered and call that out and understand what's okay and what's not. And also understand that, to Mike's point, it's okay if. If you have the money and the means to buy stuff that you know isn't worth it, but you don't care because it brings you joy. That is okay, too.

[Snowbike Mike]

Pretty fucked up that you would say that about the Stoneback Mike movie and all the printing he did with all the DVDs.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

It does work another way, though, there too. Thank you for bringing that up. Honestly, where it's like to be completely frank and transparent with people, I'm not sure that that was worth it financially, because that $50, then all of a sudden with the man hours put in with all the stuff, we're not making money from that, but it's a goodwill thing. You get what I'm saying? Like, but, like, I just feel like that's important. It's like we, We. We as a group talk and think about all these things. And I feel like if Pokemon trading card company and Call of Duty and all these people, if they did that, things could work out in a different way, that people are a lot happier for appropriate amounts of money, and money would be going in ways to. To fund the industry. But that's not what these executives are doing. And I think time and time again, like to imagine and think that these people would ever do that, it's insanity. And I get that. But that's not how things should be, in my opinion. Opinion.

[Greg Miller]

Speaking of kind of funny microtransactions, we have a bunch of super chats I want to get in here. Of course you can be part of a conversation with us each and every day by YouTube.com kind of funny games, super chats.

[Angie Hicks]

Can I correct something that's going to haunt me if I don't correct it? You can't get a Mickey Mouse shirt. It's six flights.

[Greg Miller]

I wouldn't want to call you out on that but I was like well spray paint guys. You could do madognick96 super chat and said a predatory tactic I don't like is in Street Fighter 6 where the lowest tier option for the in game currency is not enough to buy one custom but the next tier you get will get you two.

[Tim Gettys]

That's that funny money.

[Snowbike Mike]

They love that funny money.

[Tim Gettys]

They do so good at like making it just perfect that that $5 is not enough. You got to have $7 which means you either need to buy the 10 or you need to buy double 5. It's.

[Angie Hicks]

It's always DoorDash is definitely my version of NBA 2K cuz like I got, I got the Dash Pass which means if I get over 12, if I buy something over $12, I get the free delivery. Yeah but so many restaurants, I swear to God they do this on purpose.

[Greg Miller]

1150.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah, 1150. 11.99. Great. Now I got to get a side like you guys.

[Snowbike Mike]

I didn't want this. Steam rice too.

[Greg Miller]

Zeke speaks Super Chats and says for me the most problematic are games warped entirely around microtransactions, forcing players who refuse to pay to deal with the forced wait times grind, et cetera. First descendant is a great example. Warframe Less so yeah, we don't talk.

[Tim Gettys]

A lot about mobile games here as a group, but I feel like I find a lot more of that online. Like the time to grind in mobile games where it's like oh that's great you got this upgrade on your small Sims city house. You need to wait 12 hours or if you give us a dollar that becomes faster and you can just keep going. We don't, we don't really talk that much about those kind of games.

[Greg Miller]

Manny Bagel Boy Sanchez Super Chats and says the only plus side to Ultimate Team is that the better cards don't really cripple you. I only get the weekly reward packs and can be competitive, but I have friends who get obsessed and it's crazy.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I mean we'll always say it's like, like with you with WWE Greg it's like they will always look at you and say you can earn all this for free. You can just play and have fun and you don't ever have to buy. And that's the truth is you don't have to buy any of these and so yeah it's really up to the person.

[Greg Miller]

Melodic Quest says Personal Story I got super addicted to Overwatch's loot boxes to the extent I couldn't pay My bills. Those predatory tactics can affect you without you even realizing. Sizing it. That's crazy.

[Snowbike Mike]

Before I. Yeah, before I joined. Kind of funny. I. I think I was still at best Buy at this point.

[Greg Miller]

Turn on the fun.

[Snowbike Mike]

I had accidentally. I wanted to buy loot boxes, and I had. I did the purchase, but, like, I didn't see them pop up in the game. I was like, man, where are those loot boxes at? And I did it again. I was like, maybe it didn't go through. I ended up buying, like, I don't know, $150 worth. I was like, oh, my God. And I did. Of course, I'm too lazy to return it. So I just, like, probably didn't get food that week.

[Angie Hicks]

But you like. But you open all the zoo boxes, though, right?

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, I popped.

[Angie Hicks]

That must have felt great.

[Tim Gettys]

You got those voice lines.

[Snowbike Mike]

The sprays still have all those skins.

[Tim Gettys]

It's wild.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah. I forget who's the name of that person? The person that wrote in the. Oh.

[Greg Miller]

I was like, I don't know. What story are you telling? Oh, that was Melodic Quest.

[Angie Hicks]

Yeah, that's what happened to you. But, man, I missed those loot boxes. Oh, man, I used to open those. Oh, man.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, man.

[Snowbike Mike]

The sound you'd get when it was.

[Angie Hicks]

Cold, the way it would shake up.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, man, that shit would land and it was going.

[Angie Hicks]

It's probably good that they took him out, because now that I have more disposable income.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, gotta be bad news bears.

[Andy Cortez]

Speaking of, Barrett, just, you know, again, the way that they're designed, it is very much. Yes, there is personal responsibility and personal choice with the way that they're designed. Just think about you guys talking about.

[Angie Hicks]

How the ways those fucking boxes would like the colors.

[Snowbike Mike]

Oh, yeah, exactly.

[Greg Miller]

Go smoke another cigarette.

[Andy Cortez]

And the reason why those don't exist anymore just because of EU regulation.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, shut that down.

[Greg Miller]

Coming for cigarettes.

[Snowbike Mike]

Hey, how about you go fucking live in Europe then, Barrett, if you don't want to live. This is America.

[Angie Hicks]

Have you ever opened a gold loot box?

[Greg Miller]

Next Persona gonna have loot boxes left in.

[Snowbike Mike]

Get that legendary soldier 76 skin.

[Greg Miller]

Come on, to get you out of here, let's do two super chats. No, there's one more that popped in here. Zeke Speak says folks are like, quote, just don't pay for it. But that's the thing. These directly mess with people who have gambling addictions and might not know it, which I think is doubling off of the problematic one, but then also jumping into Melodic Quest. Personal story.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm glad I don't, I'm really happy. I don't got that in my DNA. The gambling stuff.

[Angie Hicks]

Sure.

[Snowbike Mike]

I mean the other day on Pokemon I was like should I do another 10 bucks that'll take me to 70? I was like nah, don't need it.

[Greg Miller]

I'll earn it.

[Blessing Adeoye Jr.]

I mean I will say with Pokemon and obviously like Pokemon and trading cards and all that, it's very a quick way to my wallet. Right. Tim Gettys me in particular. I'm happy that like I you know I did the big purchase on stream for the fun of the game and like all of us doing it together or whatever and I got the cards. I'm good now. Like I don't need to put any more money into this at the very least for this season. Right. Like there's always going to be more and something's going to come around but like I have not for a second been tempted since the stream to put any more money into Pokemon trading card game and I think that's good because I'm still playing it every day and getting a lot out of it.

[Greg Miller]

It two off topic ones to get you through here. Memo writes in it says hey, kind of funny. Just wanted to let you all know that my senior recital coming up on December 7th at San Jose State University. I already reached out before but I wanted to tell you I love you and say and support you with a super chat too.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let's go Mike.

[Greg Miller]

We know Memo. We're excited. You want to go 7 go down to San Jose State, take a little drive.

[Tim Gettys]

I'd love to see the campus. Yeah, I'd like to take a walk down the campus. You have you gotta let me think about.

[Snowbike Mike]

Let me think about it.

[Greg Miller]

I put it into slack Memo. I was like if I wasn't just getting back me and Jen from a trip without Benny it'd be a different story.

[Tim Gettys]

But Memo, you got your boy stomach might get about 80 that comes.

[Greg Miller]

We're looking at it. If you're a kind of funny best.

[Angie Hicks]

Friend in the Bay area, go see.

[Greg Miller]

Memo Senior recital university.

[Snowbike Mike]

I'm just out a lot in the next couple weeks. He's out a lot and I like that'll be. That would be. That would be like my first weekend.

[Greg Miller]

That'd be great to sit in your room.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. But then we come right back.

[Greg Miller]

The final super chats are a back to back pair from guzzling King David's glizzy super chat. Said Greg, why is Paris Lily so much cooler than you? And then Greg on the kind of funny scale why is Paris a 10 and you're a Gollum? Oh man, King David.

[Angie Hicks]

No King David. Got to be cold for Paris.

[Greg Miller]

Lily Guzzling's got it right. Paris is cooler than me. And of course, I would chalk it up to the fact that Paris is conservatively 30 years older than me. So in 30 years, check in with me and I'll probably oh dang everybody. This has been another episode of the Kind of Funny Games Cast. Each and every weekday we come to you with the biggest topics in video games. After you get the daily news from Kinda Funny Games Daily and before you go over to another stream, which today is Call of Duty, Warzone's latest map with Mike, Andy and Nick, let us know what you think of monetization in 2024 in the comments on the YouTube video and make sure you check us out live of YouTube.com kind of funny games, Twitch TV kind of funny Games, and later on podcast services around the globe. No matter where you get the show, like subscribe, follow, say hi to us on Blue sky or whatever. And then of course, make sure you're picking up that Kind offunny membership YouTube.com kind of funny games or patreon.com kind of funny until next time, swipe the card.